Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 232 Let's talk about whether we're human or not!
The alliance with the Asai clan to weaken the Saito clan and Oda Nobukiyo, Oda Nobunaga's only diplomatic move, was to form an alliance with them.

While colluding with Azai Nagamasa, Oda Nobunaga also actively sent people to infiltrate the mountains of eastern Mino, trying to persuade the Toyama family to come under his control. The Toyama family were natives of eastern Mino and had considerable influence in the area. Their head had married Oda Nobuhide's half-sister during the "Tiger of Owari" era, making him Oda Nobunaga's uncle by marriage.

In addition, Oda Nobunaga was worried about interference from Takeda Shingen when dealing with Oda Nobukiyo and Saito Tatsuoki, so he actively sent envoys to Kai, hoping to form a marriage alliance with the Takeda family. He even prepared a candidate - he took his half-sister's daughter, adopted her as his own daughter, and prepared to marry her into the Takeda family.

However, Takeda Shingen was busy battling Uesugi Kenshin at the moment and didn't pay much attention to him. Oda Nobunaga also couldn't find a suitable intermediary to mediate, so the marriage alliance couldn't be finalized for the time being.

Of course, Uesugi Kenshin was also quite capable, and Oda Nobunaga had not forgotten him. However, Uesugi Kenshin was a devout Buddhist, never married, and had no children, so it would be difficult to turn him into a relative by marriage. But that was no problem, as Oda Nobunaga said he could give him a son to adopt.

Uesugi Kenshin was quite interested. He already had several adopted sons prepared to inherit the family name, and it wouldn't be bad if Oda Nobunaga sent another one. However, considering that Owari and Echigo were far apart, he ultimately replied with a polite refusal, presenting Oda Nobunaga with a pair of falcons as a token of his gratitude and also to make his stance clear—let Mino fight it out, he wouldn't interfere or care; they'd deal with things after he had taken down Takeda Shingen.

Through a series of diplomatic efforts, Saito Tatsuoki and Oda Nobukiyo were essentially isolated. Only then did Oda Nobunaga launch a powerful offensive, using Komakiyama Castle as a base, and begin his advance towards Inuyama Castle.

Harano and Matsudaira Motoyasu also fulfilled their obligations as allies by sending troops to assist in the battle.

Matsudaira Motoyasu's forces were preoccupied with dealing with the Imagawa clan's counterattack, so the army he dispatched was merely symbolic, numbering only 500, who were essentially just there to accompany Oda Nobunaga. Harano, currently facing no external threats, deployed nearly 70% of his regular troops as agreed, with over 2000 men, along with over 2000 miscellaneous foot soldiers provided by Oda Nobunaga, to garrison Matsukura Castle, Masahira Castle, Kiharayama Castle, and nearby fortresses on the north bank of the Kiso River, in order to contain the Saito clan.

Across the river are Igiyama Castle and Unuma Castle in Mino. Previously, Oda Nobunaga had launched several small-scale attacks on the Inuyama Castle area, and the Saito clan used these two castles as a backup for reinforcements. Now that Harano has blocked this passage, if Igi Seibei, the lord of Igiyama Castle, and Osawa Masahide, the lord of Unuma Castle, want to launch a flanking attack on Oda Nobunaga as before, they will have to get past him first.

However, Haruno didn't take it too seriously. Even after capturing Inuyama Castle and annexing Mino, Oda Nobunaga was unlikely to give him any territory. At most, he would give Inuyama no castle to Princess Inuyama no castle, which would be a token gesture. So, there was no need to put too much effort into helping allies fight. Just make sure the enemy's main force didn't get through.

He had no desire to attack and remained motionless in Matsukura Castle. If Iki Seibei and Osawa Masahide planned to cross the river to Inuyama Castle, he did not intend to go out of the castle to intercept them in open battle. Instead, he planned to follow behind them and then join forces with Oda Nobunaga to attack them from both sides.

Meanwhile, Iki Seibei and Osawa Masahide dared not venture too far into enemy territory beyond such a large enemy force. In desperation, they could only start banging their heads against the city wall, intending to drive him away first.

But they shared similar sentiments with Haruno. When it came to helping allies, the sentiment was enough; they were reluctant to risk everything. After a tentative attack that resulted in the loss of over two hundred lives, they gave up and began sending small groups of troops to detour to Inuyama Castle, either to harass Oda Nobunaga's rear or to provide some reinforcements for Oda Nobukiyo's defenses.

Haruno ignored these petty actions and let Oda Nobunaga handle them himself, staying in the castle mainly to consider his own affairs.

Matsudaira Motoyasu is eyeing Totomi Province. Given Imagawa Ujizane's foolish behavior, losing Totomi Province is not far off, and Suruga Province will likely be lost as well.

Oda Nobunaga was already very wealthy after three generations of his family's wealth, and he now had more than five thousand professional soldiers under his command. If he unified the Inuyama Castle area and swallowed up Mino, he could easily lead tens of thousands of people out with the help of his powerful clans.

As the allies' territories expand, according to relativity, the territory of the wilderness actually shrinks.

This won't do. We need to take action against the Kitabatake clan soon and expand our influence to the Ise Peninsula, otherwise we'll really be slowly trapped and killed.

However, the situation on the Ise Peninsula is complex. The Kitabatake clan alone has fifteen districts and can easily mobilize an army of over ten thousand. With only the Chita Peninsula as his base, and considering amphibious landings and field battles or even sieges... to be honest, without a sure chance of victory, even if he wins, the losses will be heavy. The old-fashioned matchlock guns don't have much of an advantage against armor and bows and arrows. They're quite useful against the weak and ignorant nobles on the Chita Peninsula, but in a real large-scale battle, it's impossible to kill the enemy with long-range firepower without any casualties on his side.

War, in the end, is about people, and it always involves fighting to the death.

Moreover, the enemy also has arquebuses, they just don't have as many as the fords.

Moreover, since he suddenly landed on the Ise Peninsula to seize territory and defeated the Kitabatake clan, the Hatakeyama, Miyoshi, and Rokkaku clans couldn't just stand by and do nothing. If they formed an alliance and considered him a great menace, they would gather tens of thousands of people to drive him into the sea first and then swallow the Kitabatake clan whole...

That would mean doing all the work for someone else, which isn't appropriate.

Logically, we should wait a little longer, let Wanjin develop further, deepen its foundation, increase its reserve of soldiers, and conduct several more rounds of military training. But given the current situation, we can't wait any longer.

If we wait another two or three years, he will have nothing to do with the Japanese Warring States period, and there will be no way to talk about any plans.

Therefore, it would be best to throw the entire Ise Peninsula into chaos. By the time I arrived, the Kitabatake clan would be weakened, and the daimyo like Hatakeyama, Miyoshi, and Rokkaku would be too preoccupied to care about me. There are ways to do this, but I don't know if it will succeed, and even if it does, it would be somewhat against the natural order…

Ignoring the fact that the Wanjin Army was engaged in sporadic fighting with the Mino people, Haruno was plotting something in the city. After being the "lord of the land" for so many years, he was no longer the ordinary college student he used to be. His moral compass was declining day by day. After thinking about it for two days, he felt that he still had to do something bad. After all, if the Ise people didn't die, the Wanjin people would die. So let a few more Ise people die!
In chaotic times, it's either you devour me or I devour you; there's not much morality to speak of.

Having made up his mind, he patiently pondered for a few more days before summoning Wanjin's internal affairs officials and key members of the survivors to a meeting at Matsukura Castle to prepare for his ruthless attack.

Wanjin has always produced salt, and its technology is far more advanced than that of ordinary salt producers. It also operates as a group, which makes its costs lower than those of ordinary salt producers. Now, it has found a source of coarse salt, ensuring a continuous supply of raw materials. If Wanjin can leverage its cost advantage, it can sell at a loss or even at a loss, directly driving down the salt prices along the Ise Peninsula coast.

This step mainly involves establishing acquisition channels to buy up local samurai, noble families, and local gentry by offering low-priced salt, encouraging them to voluntarily and spontaneously resell refined salt into the Ise Peninsula and, incidentally, bring out what Wanjin needs.

What does Wanjin need?

Wanjin needs a complete beehive, a frog's hind leg, an owl's long feathers, a swallow's beak, and a butterfly's wings...

This is intended to reduce rice production in the Ise Peninsula region. Although rice can be pollinated by the wind, killing off a large number of pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies, and incidentally killing off a large number of beneficial birds and insects such as frogs, owls, and swallows, will reduce rice production in the Ise Peninsula by 20% to 30%, which is not a big problem.

At the same time, buckwheat, which was the staple food of ordinary people in this era, was cross-pollinated. If the number of pollinating insects was artificially reduced, it would be a fatal blow to the buckwheat harvest, with a reduction of half the yield being the least of the problems.

In this era, food was already scarce, and commoners had to supplement their diet with various wild vegetables and fruits just to barely survive. If half of the commoners' food rations were cut off, causing a general reduction in their rice production and forcing them to use their rations to supplement their annual tribute, it would be impossible for them not to rebel...

Of course, the daimyo, noble families, and samurai on the Ise Peninsula could also drastically reduce annual tributes, conduct large-scale disaster relief, and distribute food to the common people. However, based on Harano's many years of experience, such a thing is impossible. The more famine strikes, the more the samurai pursue annual tributes, fearing that they will be killed by the enemy when they are weak. They would never distribute food to the disaster victims like he does to help them get through the famine.

The most terrifying thing is that people have no food to eat. At that time, the Ise Peninsula will probably be in chaos, with a large number of small uprisings to escape annual tribute and resist the collection of tribute. Then, when Wanjin lands on the Ise Peninsula, the resistance and casualties should not be so great.

Yes, we can also collect a batch of cheap grains from the Guandong and Northeast regions in advance, and then take the grains there to win people's hearts.

The list of insects that Yuan Ye had been trying to acquire was very long. If it weren't for the limitations of the times, such as thrips, midges, and rice beetles being too small to catch, he probably would have included these insects as well, thus wiping out all the pollinators in one fell swoop. But even without these small insects, the list of insects he was trying to acquire was too bizarre. The officials of Wanjin's internal affairs and the core members of the Survival Clan were all dumbfounded, looking at each other, wondering what Yuan Ye was trying to do.

Collecting these things is a bit like performing some kind of witchcraft. Could it be that Lord Nohara is about to start alchemy in search of immortality?

Yuan Ye had no intention of explaining. He knew he was doing something wrong, so there was no need to spread the word. Anyway, he had given a strict order, requiring these people to collect these strange insect feathers at all costs and at any price. Next year, their performance evaluation would be based on the number of insect feathers they collected.

As the first leader of Wanjin, he had enough prestige to make every household in Wanjin hand over a young girl. Moreover, it was all at his expense, so he wouldn't cause any major trouble within Wanjin. The salt produced by the Wanjin state-run salt fields and saltworks would no longer be sold; all of it would be used for this purpose. He was determined to ensure that 30% of the population of the Ise Peninsula would go hungry after next year's autumn harvest.

These officials in charge of internal affairs in Wanzu and the core members of the survivors obeyed orders and went back to Wanzu to prepare. However, before they could collude with the small-time pirates (who were part-time pirates and civilians in fishing villages) and powerful samurai on the eastern side of the Ise Peninsula, Harano's orders came again. This time, however, they were given to the newly emerging group of traders in Wanzu, who were required to purchase the white ramie cloth, a specialty of the Ise Peninsula, at a high price this year.

Ramie originated in China and was later introduced to Japan, where it was commonly known as "Nanjing grass." This plant thrives in warm and humid conditions and is well-suited to the Japanese climate. By the Sengoku period in Japan, it was already widely cultivated, and the ramie cloth spun from it was a popular mainstream fabric. White ramie cloth from the Ise Peninsula was considered the finest among these common fabrics, representing a high-end product. It was also exceptionally well-made for wrapping cloths.

However, this kind of fabric has a drawback: it requires selecting ramie fibers that are fine, long, and tough, and then repeatedly pounding them to spin them into a natural white color. Not only is it time-consuming, but producing a single bolt of such high-quality fabric also leaves a large amount of lower-grade ramie fibers, which is somewhat wasteful.

Haruno has now set his sights on this high-end fabric, which requires a lot of labor and time. He has ordered traders to buy it at a higher price, even if they don't make a profit or lose a little money, in addition to their normal trade. At the same time, he has the survivors spread rumors in the Ise Peninsula that this fabric is extremely popular in the Kanto and Tohoku regions and is a valuable luxury item. He also said that the people of Wanzu will buy more next year, in order to encourage the common people of Ise to put more effort into spinning hemp cloth and to encourage the samurai in the Ise Peninsula to take on more labor and expand the planting area of ​​ramie.

This serves as another layer of insurance against food shortages for the common people of the Ise Peninsula next year. While samurai can buy food from afar with their money, common people may not be able to buy food even with their money, and what they can buy will be at exorbitant prices.

Even here, Haruno wasn't finished. Still uneasy, he continued to plot in Matsukura Castle, gathering intelligence on the Ise Peninsula and devising various insidious schemes to weaken the daimyo of the Ise Peninsula.

He was learning from Oda Nobunaga. In order to easily take down Saito Tatsuoki and Oda Nobukiyo, Oda Nobunaga didn't even care about his reputation. He married off his sister and daughter, asked his uncle to send his son, and he was practically selling his ass.

He can't fall too far behind, let's talk about whether he's even human or not!
(End of this chapter)